Scarred
by Anom
Summary: A Turk fears nothing but old age and incompetence. Tseng, thinking back on his years as a Turk, wonders when his luck will finally run out.


Ok, so there are a lot of introspective Reno ficlets out there, and as much as I love the red head, I love Tseng more. So I'm letting Tseng be broody and thoughtful for awhile. This fic basically came from me thinking about all the scars each Turk must have.

I'm sure Reno has some interesting scars too, maybe I'll work that into something else.

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He was getting old.

Tseng looked coldly at the reflection in the mirror, analyzing the face he saw as mercilessly as he did everything else. Although his grey eyes shimmered with Mako, beyond the unnatural glow they were cold, dead, and the bags beneath them seemed to say that sleep was a luxury he could no longer afford. His features had become more drawn, the lines deeper as years passed, but these things had not been the cause of his worry. At thirty eight, he wasn't what most people would have considered old. But most Turks didn't live past their fifth year at the job, and he was quickly coming up on his twenty second. That itself was a miracle composed of incredible training and an unbelievable amount of luck. Over twenty years, he repeated in his mind, thinking back on all the men and women he had trained only to watch as they died on the field. Most of them would have been his equal one day had they not had one moment of bad luck, or bad intelligence, or incompetent superiors. He'd lived, just barely at times, and the hard years had certainly left their marks. In the mirror, his too pale skin seemed to flaunt the scars that riddled his body, reminding him of every brutal mission and more close calls than he wanted to remember.

He leaned forward, resting his hands on the cool tile counter, letting certain wounds tell their stories again, still feeling the ghostly pain as he recalled each. There were three bullet wounds spaced in a vague line across his torso, each only centimeters away form a killing wound. if the man with the sub machine gun had pulled the trigger a split second sooner or later, only one of those bullets would have ended it for him right there on a dirty warehouse floor. He'd been damn lucky, 'Rookie Luck' Vincent had snapped when Tseng was recovering. At least he'd learned a few things about checking the area before moving from one point of cover to another. People often said it was natural to learn from ones mistakes, but for the Turks, most lessons were too hard, and they didn't get a second chance.

Along his forearm was a neat slice, mirrored on the underside of his arm, entry and exit wounds from a knife that had been meant for his throat. There had certainly been something primally satisfying about tearing the weapon from his own body and using it to gut his attacker. He wondered what his current Turks would think if they could have seen him on such missions. In recent years Tseng had been removed from the battlefield, often stuck as the Presidents bodyguard rather than the leader his men needed. Reno had probably forgotten exactly what Tseng was capable of, while Rude seemed to assume that their leader had mellowed out a bit after his promotion.

On his upper arm there lay a vaguely star shaped burn, a reminder of Reno's resourcefulness in sparring. He didn't have as much formal hand to hand training as Tseng, but he was fast and he was vicious. Tseng knew it seemed foolish to allow the red head his Electro Mag Rod during sparring matches, but beating Reno while unarmed did keep him humbled a bit. Respect was a costly commodity in his line of work, one he knew he needed to keep. If his men didn't think he could best them in combat or take a hit as well as they could there was always the chance for insubordination. He had seen a Turk leader taken down by one of their own in the past, and knew the cost of losing respect.

A small puncture, now barely visible, told of a gut shot. The worst place to be shot, it bled like you wouldn't believe and hurt even more. This particular wound hadn't been life threatening, and the mission was almost complete, but Tseng's partner, his rookie, had cast a cure over the wound. It was a quick fix, something he should have known better than to try and learned not to do again. The cure spell had sealed the bullet into Tseng's stomach, and the removal surgery had ended up hurting more than the initial wound had.

Shrapnel had left several jagged, sporadic looking ridges along his side. That one had been partially Rude's fault, but Tseng held him no animosity for the mistake. Rude hadn't realized yet that while Shinra manuals said count to three before throwing grenade, common sense dictated you only counted two. He hadn't even noticed the wounds until they were back in the helicopter and he'd leaned against the wall and sent the metal in deeper. It had started to hurt as soon as he looked at it. Funny how that worked. Most Turks figured out quickly enough that when your partner told you not to look, chances were you wanted to listen.

The most noticeable of his mementos was a mass of long ago mangled flesh that covered the majority of his stomach. Shinra was notorious for underestimating their opponents, and at the time none of the Turks had thought a newly birthed resistance group would be sporting any type of materia, much less mastered fire spells. Shiva, he thought, looking down at the sink as the memory of his own smoking flesh and exposed organs made him shudder. That had been close. Too close. He still chose to carry ice materia when he could.

For all his close calls, he was still alive. His current Turks thought him distant, but none of them ever considered what the reason for it might be. They were his family, and he did care about them in his own fashion. But as much as they all meant to him, here was no guarantee that any of them, himself included, would live past their next mission. If he allowed himself to be any closer to his men, he would have likely gone insane with grief years ago. Even with his self imposed distance, he still remembered every Turk he had worked with, every man and woman that had fought and died at his side. He remembered their faces, their names, all the stupid little things that had made them worth knowing, and most of all he remembered them dying.

Wyatt had been his friend, one of the first Turks to stop calling a new recruit 'Wute' or 'Spot' and actually teach him something about the job. He'd been quiet, humble, and easily the best marksman Tseng had ever seen. Not even Vincent would step up to challenge Wyatt when it came to pistols. Being able to shoot well, he found out, didn't count for much when your car exploded. Tseng had been there when it happened, the explosion had blown him off his feet and he'd skinned his face when he'd hit the pavement. Those injuries had faded long ago, but his left hand still couldn't quite close into a fist, a reminder of breaking all his knuckles while pounding the man responsible for Wyatt's death into an unrecognizable, bloody mess. Vincent had literally had to pry him off the corpse.

Vincent. Tseng's teacher, his mentor, the only father figure he'd ever really had. Vincent, who was foolish enough to interfere with one of Shinra's precious experiments. Tseng couldn't look his reflection in the eyes for moment as he remembered receiving the news that Vincent had been executed for insubordination. He hadn't been there when Vincent had needed him, and he hadn't even been able to avenge his death. Tseng was loyal to Shinra, but he was more loyal to the Turks, and if Vincent had asked him, he would have killed Hojo. He still wanted to.

Roland had been the first real Turk, one of the only to live well into his forties. After countless missions, his downfall had been from within the ranks when Naomi had decided he was no longer fit to lead. Tseng had broken her neck for her arrogance, but not before she had managed to kill Roland. The lesson had been a hard one, but Tseng chose his own Turks more carefully than Roland, knowing that loyalty was just as important as a killer instinct or marksmanship.

Celia had been such a contradiction, and the memory of her put a sad smile on Tseng's lips. Celia, strong, outgoing, friendly within their little family but murderous to all others, she been intimidating and irresistible all at once. There's had been a...complicated...relationship. It had hurt more than the others when he had heard of her death. Rude had been there for her final moments, and he had made the men responsible pay and later related the story in all its gruesome detail to Tseng, who took small comfort in their suffering. It was not lost on him that Elena admired him the same way he had Celia, and how he, now at the other end, refused to acknowledge her the way Celia had, if only for a single night, acknowledged him. He wondered if he had learned from the pain and wanted to spare Elena, or if he was more worried about sparing himself. It all depended, he thought dryly, on which one of them died first.

The faces flashed by quicker now, the instant of death burned forever into his memories. Joshua hadn't moved for cover fast enough and taken a bullet between the eyes for his error. A stupid, rookie mistake the boy shouldn't have died over. Eileen had left her back open and gotten her throat slit. Dorian had been unlucky enough to take the bullet that turned a standoff into a firefight and not lived to tell abbot it. Reed and Gayle had both been caught by a high level lightning spell, reduced in seconds to charred masses of smoking flesh. Tseng himself had been called upon to execute Fayne after the woman was exposed as a leak. While all Turks knew what Shinra was and how much it probably did deserve to be destroyed, they also should know better than anyone what happens to those who opposed the company. Colin had been taken captive, and by the time the Turks had tracked down and murdered his captors, there wasn't much left of him to save. Every death had been followed by the brutal and swift destruction of those responsible, but it never seemed to ease the pain.

Tseng tried not to think of them too often, as the realization that he had outlived so many was a sombering one. He had almost banished the memory of each and decided that not caring for his men at all might be preferable, but he couldn't. Not after he was the one who had made them what hey were. He had been responsible for them in life, and he would be responsible for them in death as well. Shinra had destroyed the records of every Turk and they simple ceased to exist the moment they took the job. For Tseng, remembering them was the only thing he could do, the only way he could honor them was by merely acknowledging that they had lived. It was more than anyone else would do for them, and a burden that had come with leadership. As surely as every mission had left its scars on his flesh, each Turk had left their mark on him.

Leaving his quiet reverie, Tseng looked down to his newest wound, a bullet hole in the tender phase between scab and scar. At just to the left of his heart, it was closer than anything had ever come before. But it wasn't the wound itself that had him sitting up at night, staring into the unforgiving glass, he'd had enough close calls not to let another wreak havoc on him. It was the fact that he hadn't seen the shooter in time and hadn't been fast enough to dive for cover that brought him back to the realization;

He was getting old.

Words from long ago echoed in his mind, advice he had given to every Turk he had trained, '_Fear nothing but old age an incompetence'. _Incompetence could be prevented through long hours of training and careful planning, and Tseng had been diligent in those aspects. Old age was another matter entirely. All the careful training in the world didn't mean anything if your body didn't react as fast as you told it to. Roland was the only Turk he' ever heard of living into their forties, and to even reach thirty was a rare accomplishment. It was inevitable in this line of work, something accepted along with the suit and prestige, the simple fact that he would die in a pool of his own warm blood. He was getting old, and he didn't know how much longer his luck would last.

A sharp ringing from the adjacent room cut him from the introspection as the PHS reminded him of the joys of being on call twenty four hours a days. He moved to pick up the slim phone, recognizing the number as Scarlett's.

"Sir?"

She was speaking before he'd finished,

"Tseng, we've heard from Reeve. He'll be stealing the keystone in a few hours and we need you at the Gold Saucer to pick it up. There'll be a helicopter waiting at headquarters."

"Understood."

The phone went silent, as it was a given that there would be no complaint or questions. A Turk followed their orders, even at ungodly hours in the morning. Retrieving his clothes, Tseng tried not to think about what would happen after this mission. Acquiring the keystone meant they were that much closer to catching up with Sephiroth, and he had no doubt as to who Shinra would throw at the legendary swordsman first. Tseng would have worried, but he knew better by now. Worrying, feeling anything about a mission, was a sure fire way to get yourself killed. He would deal with the Sephiroth issue if and when he was finally faced with it. He did, however, let himself be annoyed that Shinra thought sending them after Sephiroth with no back up was a good idea, it was like they were asking for the Turks to get wiped out. He'd taken what precautionary measures as he could, even gone so far as to forbid his men from directly engaging the insane Ancient. He just hoped hat he had enough luck left to face him when the time came.

Straightening his tie, he looked back into the mirror. The suit hid all marks the job had left on him, leaving only the dead eyes to tell his story. Looking at himself now, it was easier to forget the close calls and to focus only on how good he was at what he did.

Fuck it, he thought flippantly. Fuck old age, and fuck luck. A Turk wasn't lucky. A Turk made their own luck, they were that damn good. A Turk didn't second guess themselves or worry. He would continue to do his job like he always had, and would until something cut him down. That was what being a Turk meant.

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I had some fun with the introspectiveness here, and making up the random Turks and how they died. If anyone cares, Wyatt, Roland, Naomi and Celia will someday be in a story about Vincent's past (which will feature some Tseng), and there's also a Turk named Darren in there somewhere, but Tseng doesn't think he's worth remembering (burn...). The other Turks mentioned were created on the spot, but I feel bad for all of them, I did wonder if I'd listed enough, twenty years of Turkage seems like it would have a lot of casualties, but I didn't want to draw that part out too much.

Kind of makes it sadder thinking that this was in-game, meaning he's going to die soon (I know he was alive in Advent Children, but that movie had a ressurection count to rival fanfiction. Tseng died. So did Rufus. Advent Children was pure fan service)


End file.
